Britpop Battle: Oasis vs. Blur

This is an especially personal one for Steve — back when he was a Britpop-loving teen in the nineties, this was one of the first rock rivalries that he cared about. Which is odd, because in America, nobody really cared about Oasis vs. Blur the way people did in England, where they were the two biggest bands in the land. Blur were the knowing chroniclers of posh British society, and Oasis was the scrappy pub-rock band of the working class. While Blur was actually supportive of Oasis early on, Oasis looked at Blur as an impediment on their road to world domination, and proceeded to mercilessly bully them in public. In time, Oasis would come to massively overshadow Blur in terms of commercial success, though Blur's frontman Damon Albarn ultimately had a more lasting career outside of the band.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan's and I'm so excited for this episode because
it's my friend Stephen Hyde in his personal super Bowl.
He's been preparing for this one for twenty five years.
Today we are diving into Oasis versus Blur, the battle
of brit Pop. Stephen has extremely strong feelings on this,
as it will soon become apparent. Yes, when I wrote
my book about music rivalries, Your favorite Band is Killing

(00:43):
Me a few years ago, I wrote the first chapter
on this rivalry because it was one of the first
rivalries that I personally ever cared about. It's what taught
me how to hate Jordan's. I have to say that
it's awfully hard to let go of how I felt
when I was sixteen years old, which is that Asis
is great and brilliant and one of the best bands
ever and Blur sucks really really hard. I have to say,

(01:07):
when you were sixteen, I would have been I think
about six I knew nothing about the famous Oasis versus
Blur chart face off that was taking place at that time.
To me, the winner was abundantly clear. Oasis was the
wonder wall band. You know everybody that the song was everywhere.
If I'd heard of Blur at all at that time,

(01:28):
it would have been as like a tween watching MTV
two and seeing the video for song of A two
or something, which to me sounded like something like Blink
two or Green Day. You know. I had no idea
that Blur were brit pop forefathers, probably until their best
of album came out in two thousand I think, which
is sort of like the Louder than Bombs for my
age demo, Like that was what all the cool record
stores that are in town had like posters of. But

(01:50):
even then I had no knowledge of this blood feud
with Oasis until learning more about the history of brit pop,
and to me, without knowing the British cultural implications, they
seemed to come from completely different musical universe. Is Oasis
and Blur? Yeah, this is like one of those episodes
where I feel like the old man pulling up his
rocking chair and explaining to the young people would it
felt like to live in a war? Because you can

(02:12):
read about it in textbooks, Sonny, but you don't know
what it was like to be in the trenches, buying
imports singles for precious always B sides and taking your
marching orders from Noel Gallagher about the evils of Damon Alburn.
I think I have to break this down for you
and all the other kiddies out there. So let's get
into this mess. We have to start, unfortunately, Stephen with Blur.

(02:35):
They were the first earlier band. They were formed while
the members were attending college in London, and they initially
wanted to call themselves Seymour after a J. D. Salinger novella.
I feel like, right there, that's a pretty good indicator
of how different Blur are than Oasis. I wonder like
if the Gallagher brothers have read any J. D. Sounger.
I'm guessing probably not. I mean it's starting as more

(02:57):
of a Faulkner band, to be honest. Blur really their
debut Leisure, two years later after they formed, and a
two month tour of the United States in would prove
to be really instrumental for the band because they were
homesick and they were starting to sort of tweak their
sound as a reaction against this American grunge scene that
sort of helped them whenever torn across the country, and

(03:18):
they embrace their own cultural identity and the home grown
sounds of England like the Rolling Stones, who the Kinks,
bands like the Clash, and more modern groups like the
Specials and the Smiths and Madness and this so the
seas of brit pop, which was, you know, admittedly more
of like a headline hype kind of thing than a
genuine musical movement, but it did have a distinctive sound
with its mix of pop melodies and rock and roll swagger. Yeah,

(03:41):
you know, I feel like I have to say this
before we get too far into this episode, that you
don't have to come clean and say that I don't
actually think Blur sucks. You know, I respect their career
in legacy, and I think I can analyze it without
litting my intense pro oasis biases get in the way.
So I'll just put that out there. There's any Blur
fans out there who are already turning off this episode

(04:03):
because they feel like this will not be a fair
and balanced episode of Rivals, I am promising that I
can do that. I think the britishness of Blur is
what really ties them to bands, like you were saying,
like the Kinks and the Smiths, Like when you listen
to their records, especially the ones that they made at
their creative peak in the mid nineties, you get a
real sense of what it was like to live in England.
I think at that time, like there's a specificity to

(04:26):
Blur lyrically that really sets them apart as cultural commentators
and really like on some level, like they're like satirists.
I think in a lot of ways, Oasis doesn't have
that at all. Like lyrically, they're basically focused on things
like cigarettes and alcohol and rock and roll and all
that and cool guys stuff the culture around bands basically,

(04:47):
so in a way I think like Blur is probably
stronger when it comes to lyrics, though I think the
generality of Oasis is what allowed them to transition better
to the American market, And I also think it makes
oasis is songs more timeless, Like you listen to Blur
and it seems very nineties to me, whereas Oasis has
a timelessness where if you just like good time rock

(05:09):
and roll, Oasis delivers in spades. Blue reach peak Britishness,
they have to say. When they released their third album,
their masterpiece, really, park Life, and it's written from the
perspective of the British working class, and the music video
for the title track even had Phil Daniels, who played
Jimmy the mod in the nine film Quadraphenia based on

(05:30):
on the Who album. So I mean, you know, you
don't get much more British than Jimmy the maud here.
This album was an absolute smash, hitting number one for
nine weeks in the UK and one an unprecedented four
brit Awards, which is like the English equivalent of Grammy's
basically Best Single, Best Video for Park Life, Best Album
and Best British Group. And before this, you know, UK

(05:52):
indie bands were basically like fringe acts and now they
were at national figures. They basically had swept their version
of the Grammy Big War really and in their acceptance
speech for Best British Group, David Albert goes on stage
and says that he should be sharing this award with
another up and coming British group, Oasis, which Graham Cox
and ads much love and respect to them. Yes, which

(06:13):
again I think this is going to define in a
lot of ways the dynamic between these two bands, because Blur,
to me, we're not the instigators of this at all,
like they in a way were the victims of it.
Like I don't think that they really saw Oasis as
like competitors, as you can see from that speech. In
a way, I think they looked at them as like compatriots,
like we're these young British bands, We're bringing England back

(06:35):
to rock and roll at a time where grunge was
very dominant. And like you said before, you know, part
of what the inspiration was for Blur at the time
is that they wanted to assert that England matter too,
Like they didn't want to emulate what the Americans were doing,
so they did something that was very much kind of
based in their own culture. And I think they looked
at Oasis with pride in a way, like, oh, this

(06:56):
is another great British rock band coming along. And of
course Oways says they put out their debut definitely maybe
earlier on in And if you want more background on
the Oasis story, I recommend that you check out our
earlier episode on the rivalry between Noel and Liam Gallagher.
We get pretty deep into it, uh you know their
background in that episode. But I think in terms of

(07:19):
the dynamic with Blur, it's important to just say quick
that Oasis I think could be pretty broadly defined as
like the blue collar band. You know, they came from
more of a working class background, and I think musically
they were just much more of like a meat and
potatoes type band really, like kind of like a pub
rock band, which is a crazy thing to say about

(07:40):
a band that would like pretty quickly go on to
play stadiums. But I think that even when they were
playing on the biggest stages, the appeal of Oasis was
that these were simple songs that you could pretty much
memorize after the first time you heard them, and by
like the second or third time, you would have your
arms around the other lads in your group, hoisting points

(08:02):
and thinking about how you wanted to live forever. Like
that was the appeal of Oasis, much less cerebral than Blur.
Like Blur was the kind of band again, this was
a band that almost named themselves after a J. D.
Sunder story. You know, they were much more literary band,
and they were much more I think concerned with the
culture of Britain and and commenting on what was going
on in England at the time, and yeah, it just

(08:23):
comes from two different worlds and I think because of
those different aesthetics it just really lined up well. Even
though Blur I don't think wanted to have a conflict,
I think it made it like really attractive for Oasis
in the beginning anyway, to be this underdog band that
could kind of just like throw darts at this like
very popular but kind of snooty and posh band called Blur. Yeah.

(08:46):
I mean this really from the jump, these two bands
had really distinct lanes, as you were saying, and it
kind of sets the groundwork for this Beetle Stones comparison
thing to come. I mean Oasis were the brash, swaggering
working class heroes and Blur were like the tweetie are
at school kids and they had a more refined and
introverted approach to their music. Oasis are cocky and arrogant.

(09:06):
Blur has Alex James, who's this like winky, cuddling dude
who bounces around like he's in the Monkeys. I mean
it's you couldn't get more distinct from him than like
Liam Gallagher who just goes on stage and scowls with
his hands behind his back the whole time. In terms
of their music, obviously, Oasis, as you said, made the
totally opposite of Blur's kinksish character studies and all the
sort of satires found on Park Life. Instead of making

(09:29):
an album about the British every man, which is what
Blur did with Park Life, they made an album for
the British every man, like a celebration of the ordinary person.
I always felt like you could, actually you feel like
you could be an Oasis too, where I don't think
that's something that you feel with Blur. You know, no
one knows what the hell supersonic man. It just sounded cool,
and you mentioned cigarettes and alcohol. The song on the

(09:50):
Oasis track. It doesn't condone it's use, but it's about,
in Nole's words, someone who's on the doll who might
not have any other pleasures but these, so you know,
he's sort of unders dance where these people are coming from,
whereas Blur are just kind of like sketching them um style.
Over Stubstance is a bit too reductive for the Oasis
versus Blur discussion, but I think it's not far off

(10:11):
to describing what what they have going on. Yeah, to
me like a handy way to break down the differing
world views of Blur and Oasis is I think Blur
essentially wrote songs from like an insider's point of view
of British society, particularly like the country's like trendy and
like most posh people, you know. I think of that
song country House Like, which is like one of the

(10:31):
defining Blur songs of this era, which was about their
manager buying this like lavish mansion in the country, and
the tone of that song is very much reminiscent of
like those ray Baby songs from the Kinks, where it's
taking this like knowing comic view of privilege, whereas Oasis
had an outsider's perspective, like they actually aspired to fame
and wealth when they put out their first record, they

(10:53):
didn't know anyone that had a country house like they
wanted to have a country house. I always think of
the first song, I definitely maybe rock and Rolls are
as being like their mission statement, like for Oasis, being
in a band was an escape in the idea of
owning a house in the country. At least at first,
it was like this incredible luxury that you could only
dream about, you know, Like for Blur it was something
you could that you would make fun of almost but

(11:15):
for Oasis it was like this romantic thing, you know,
like we want to be rich so we can be
one of those people. So like to me, like dead
is the core difference between those two groups. And yeah,
I mean the thing that I love about them is
that it's it's the case of the underdog succeeding. I mean,
they brought themselves out of this horrible poverty and in
Northern England and be cam and it's it's rare that
somebody from the Jump sings about wanting to be a

(11:37):
rock and roll star on track one of their first
album and then does it almost instantly. Man, that's part
of the magic of the Oasis story. I feel like,
oh absolutely, it's like the greatest called shot in rock history.
Like some of the fiercest feuds, Oasis and Blur started
out actually sharing a healthy mutual respect for one another.
When we talked about the brit Awards earlier, when Blur
get up and and actually praise Oasis when they're accepting

(11:57):
the award for Best British Artist, and I think only
five of the enemy awards. Liam Gallagher was actually really
humble when Blur walked away with five awards to Oasis
is three. He said, you know, I don't think we
Oasis should have gotten more awards than Blur. Blur are
a top band. I mean from from Liam Gallagher, that's
like incredibly high praise. But their respects started to turn

(12:20):
towards resentment after they were lumped together with Blur won
too many times in the press under the whole brit
pop flag banner, which which they really were kind of
keen to avoid. They kind of thought it was just
twee and like like you said, I mean, they were
doing more just rock and roll. They weren't really specifically
trying to take a stand for British culture in the
world or anything. And their label boss Alan McGee later

(12:42):
said that the track A Digsie's Dinner on Definitely Maybe
was actually a piss take to use his words of Blur,
uh and it was just like to show Noel basically
mocking the whole brit pop sound and showing that he
could do it in his sleep. It was easy to
do and but I just choose not to do it.
You know, this is gonna be something that we speculated
this episode about about like the legitimacy of this view,

(13:03):
like whether there was genuine animus there or if it
was just about basically creating a hype to sell records.
And I think there's ample evidence that it was overblown,
that there really wasn't that much of a conflict. I
do think, however, that like Oasis, their main problem with
Blur is that at this time, Blur was the bigger band,

(13:23):
and Oasis had a lot of ambition and they wanted
to be the biggest band. I think they wanted to
be the biggest band in the world. But before you
could be the biggest band in the world, you had
to be the biggest band in England. And this just
strikes me as like a classic case of like, well,
if you want to be the boss, you have to
take out the boss. And it seems like, you know,
more than anything, that was what was motivating the trash

(13:45):
talking that was going on, like we can lower these
guys a peg. Also, if you talk about the most
famous band in the country, that's gonna get you a
lot of press attention. It's gonna basically be a double
win because not only are you making them, you know
Blur look bad but also elevating yourself, and it seems
like that is the strategy like from this point on

(14:05):
with Oasis, like in relation to Blur, that like they're
basically just gonna like mess with these guys heads as
much as they can until they can overtake them. And
it's funny to me and it maybe like a little
sad too that like Blur did not know how to
deal with this. I mean they really I think we're
like mystified by like the attacks that Oasis we're gonna

(14:26):
be launching on them like from here on out. Oh yeah.
They took it personally. Instead of like being able to
trash talk back, they took it very personally. Damon was
in a Blurred documentary No Distance Left to Run In
and he says, Noel Gallaghy used to take the piss
out of me constantly and it really really hurt at
the time. Oasis were like the bullies I had to
put up with in the school, which is you know said,

(14:48):
I mean, the Gallagher brothers came from Manchester and they
had this this difficult upbringing and very violent adolescence and
they can't resist. You know, it's it's fight or flight
at all times for them, and they can't resist the
chance to to just take shots at the leading band,
and you know, Blur coming from you know, good London
families is just the perfect target. Yeah, And that's the

(15:11):
thing about this is that you know, you can look
at this scenario and you can go like, yeah, oh,
way's there were bullies. Their treatment of Blur was unfair.
But I think the reason why, like the trash talking
landed is that what they were saying how to bring
a truth to it. There's this great documentary about britpop
that came out in two thousand three called of Course,
Live Forever, where Noel Gallagher he's filmed sitting in this

(15:32):
like huge opulent house. I assume it's like one of
his like twenty seven houses, and he's like in this
like high backed chair that looks like a throne. You know,
it looks like he's like King Noel sitting in this
huge house and he's talking in this interview about how
he used to work on building sites, and which is
kind of like a weird image because again he's like
in the midst of this huge house and he's talking

(15:53):
about his working class background. But he basically says about
Blur that like, you know, when before I was famous,
like I used to you know, work abs where I
would get dirt underneath my fingernails. And I'm not saying
that's a badge of honor, it's just the fact, like
that's where I come from. And then like in the
same interview, I think it's like in the DVD extras,
actually he calls Damon Auburn a condescending cock. That's a

(16:14):
quote for writing songs about the encroachment of American culture
on England, which was like again one of the big
themes of those like classic Blur records and those quote
is if you've got the time to worry about American
culture creeping into a British society, then I would get
a proper fucking job. And then he of course calls
Damon Auburn a fucking student, which I think he like,

(16:37):
that's also like what he said about Radiohead and probably
like every other like prominent British band of that time.
As an oaysis fan, I think this is beautiful, of course,
and I am someone who is more apt to sort
of like sympathize with the blue collar underdog band. So
you know, I of course eat all this stuff up.
I will say, like, on some level, I will concede

(16:59):
that like this is no Gallagher again being a bit
of a bully and maybe even being a hypocrite, you know,
talking about having dirt under his figure and nails, like
when he was a much richer rock star, probably at
that point than Damon Alburn was. But again, he's puncturing
the pretensions of like smart culture and I put smart
in quotes, and he's doing it a way that I

(17:20):
think resonates with people. And as an American fan, that
was one of the things I connected with. Like I
liked the no bullshit attitude of Oasis and it really
connected with me after all those years of like grunge
bands basically being miserable about being famous. It's like, here
was an unpretentious guy from like a really hard rocking
band that embraced being famous and made fun of people

(17:44):
that like took rock start him too seriously. I mean
that I think was the appeal of Oasis. I think
it was the same interview where he said, yeah, I
used to work on building sites that fundamentally makes my
soul more pure than blurs, right, you know. I mean
he's kidding and it's funny, but on some level, Oh
you wonder how much he's actually kidding, Yeah exactly. I
mean he says it with a wink, but he also

(18:06):
used that as a cudgel against Blur, you know, and
it really worked. Yeah, it's pretty brutal shanking. Uh. Taking
it back, things start to really get weird between the
two bands. Backstage at the Enemy Awards, Liam starts taking
shots at Alex James, who I always thought was kind
of like the cute one, sort of like the Davy
Jones of Blur, like always sort of like always winking

(18:29):
at the camera. He's like, he's the one that just
seems to be so impressed with his own adorability. And
I can see how Liam will get really piste off
by that, So he starts shouting various uh not nice
things at Alex James and Graham Coxon is very drunk
and walks up and kisses Liam on the cheek and
tries to like smooth things over. This doesn't completely boil

(18:50):
over into a full out rumble, but you can definitely
tell that something is about to happen between these two bands. Yeah,
and it goes to another level when Always puts out
the singles I might say uh, which is one of
the great Oasis songs and also an example of something
I was talking about earlier, where lyrically, Oasis songs are
like nonsensical, Like that is one of the most famous

(19:12):
nonsensical Oasis songs of all time, talking about there's fishes
in the dishes and like that whole thing at the
end makes no sense, just terrible lyrics, but just a
brilliant rock song and incredible sort of like t Rex
inspired guitar riff and Owasis through a party when that
song went to number one and Damon Alburn decides to

(19:33):
show up, I guess it's like a sign of goodwill,
like he's trying to support again this other you know
band in the British rock scene. And apparently at the party,
you know, Damon Alburn's hanging out and Liam Gallagher comes
up to him and goes right in his face and
he goes numble fucking one, which is amazing. That was
me trying to do a Liam Gallagher impression. Was pretty good,

(19:54):
and from then it just you know, pretty much like deteriorated.
Apparently there were some unkind things said about Damon Auburn's
girlfriend at the time, which was Justine Frishman from the
band Alastica, and uh damon. I think at this point
he felt like, Okay, we're gonna have this sort of
confrontational relationship I guess between our bands. But it seems

(20:16):
like from his perspective he still kind of thought of
it as like, well, this is just for fun, Like
I'm not taking it personally. This is a show business.
But like from then on, like Oasis like did take
it seriously, like they like legitimately like hated Blur, or
at least that was the story anyway, that like, you know,
Blur might have looked at it as a game, but
Oasis was gonna basically take it forward as a blood sport.

(20:39):
And for years this incident was put forward as the
moment when Blurred decided to launch their famous chart battle
with Oasis. They were going to release their single country House,
and they were checking the release schedules and Oasis is
uh single role with It was going to be out
I think the week before, so they moved their song

(20:59):
backs they'll be released on exactly the same day, so
they could duke it out in the charts and see
who would be you know, the pre eminent British rock
band of the moment, and so for years this whole
number fucking one thing was cited as like why that happened.
In later years, many have suspected that there was actually
a deeper reason for this feud, and you can kind

(21:19):
of get a sense of it in the Live Forever
documentary when Damon's asked about the feud with Oasis and
he gets really like awkward and quiet, and he says,
I'm not going to tell you the real reason why,
because you know there are other people involved in the
real reason why we fell out so publicly, and it
was kind of this like ominous thing to say. He
got very like, you know, you didn't really want to

(21:40):
go there, and and it kind of seemed like, okay,
maybe he just thinks he's too grown up to you know,
engage in this kind of like feuding now. But then
in the Daniel Rachel's two thousand nineteen oral history of
brit Pop called Don't Look Back at Anger, Nol speaks
of a love triangle between Liam Gallagher and Damon and
you know, as one might expect, he was less than
delicate and his phrasing he said, Liam and Damon were

(22:01):
shagging the same bird and there was a lot of
cocaine involved and that's where the germ of the feud grew. Uh.
And so it hasn't been proven, but it's some other
people in the in the Oasis and Blurred Camp have
basically backed that up, that there was there was a
love triangle situation going on. Yeah, like Ellen McGhee, who
was the head of Creation Records, he backed up that

(22:22):
version of events, but like Liam Gallagher himself has denied it.
He went on Twitter and he vehemently said that this
was not true. I love that he referred to Damon
Auburn as Dermott Oblong, which is an incredible this of
Damon Alburn. But yeah, he basically said like that that
that's not true. And he said and as for you McGee,

(22:42):
you fucking wasp, keep your fucking mouth shut about me.
Oh yo, get slapped as you were lg x um.
So yeah, I don't know, I mean, does that is
that actually an admission of guilt there? I don't know,
is this like a non denial denial. I mean he's
sort of like vehminly I said, attacking them. He's not
like I think he protests a little too much. Yeah,

(23:05):
like he doth protest too much. I'd say, we're gonna
take a quick break to get a word from our
sponsor before we get to more rivals. So who knows
the real reason for why this food is taken off.

(23:25):
But it's August four, that's the release date for Blour's
next single, country House, the same day that Oasis was
due to release Roll with It Showdown in the charts.
The British rock community have not seen anything like this
since the Beatles versus the Stones. I feel like it
should be noted here that like none of this stuff
like really mattered in America. I mean, it's kind of

(23:46):
amazing to me that like I cared about it at
all like ninety six, because you know, Oasis was building
an audience in the United States, but like it didn't
really like flourish here until like the spring of ninety six.
That that's when wonder All like really blew up and
it became a top ten hit in America. And like
Blur still like wasn't like that big of a deal

(24:07):
in America that they were a cult band, but like
you mentioned song too, you know, that didn't come out
until like ninety seven. Or so, so like all the
stuff that we're talking about, it was really kind of focused,
you know, in England and you know maybe some other
places in Europe. You know, the only Americans really who
cared about the Oasis versus Blur rivalry in America were
like basically just nerds like me who were into British bands,

(24:30):
who were you know, like buying Supergrass records and Verve
records and you know maybe even like getting into Gay
Dad and you know, bands like that. We're the only
ones that cared. But yeah, this was definitely you know,
an outside of America phenomenon at this point, and it
is just crazy to reflect on how huge a cultural
moment this was. In England. It was like a serious

(24:52):
cultural event. They were on the cover of the Enemy,
which is like the British version of Rolling Stone, basically
a big banner headline British heavyweight Channe being Chip with
this mock boxing poster featuring the two bands, and they're
even like spots on the national ten o'clock news. I mean,
in the eyes of the British public, this was an
all out cultural wharves industrial North versus you know, cultured South.

(25:14):
It was rich versus poor educated versus uneducated, middle class
versus working class. As we said earlier, Blur took on
the role of the sort of elitist middle class Londoners,
and Oasis appeared to personify the roughnecked working class Northern
English folk. And Oasis dubbed Blur art school wankers and
Mott Damon for singing with this like faux Cockney accent

(25:35):
that you know he had he had no right to
sing in because of his posh upbringing. And you know,
Oasis hadn't gone to college. And you know, as we
mentioned earlier, they spent time before they were banned as
construction workers. And you said said it perfectly earlier. They
were trying to reject this pretense that they felt that
Blur was all about the sort of art school, slightly
bohemian thing that Blur put forward. They wanted to make

(25:56):
rock and roll real again. And you know, Blur they
dismissed them as preening public school boys, and the inference
being that like a life of privilege had left them
with no real emotions to call on it, and Oasis
were like really had their heart on their sleeve and
they could be I'll behaved and laddish, but they were
real and you know, it's it's important to mention that

(26:17):
at the upstart of this whole feud, Blur were a
much much, much much bigger, better established bands, so it
did have that underdog thing and it really added to
their whole every man charm. But then on the flip side,
Blur came across as like the kind of nerdy kid
who got bullied, and Oasis were absolutely the buoys in
the scenario. Yeah, and I think you really see like

(26:38):
Blur having second thoughts almost immediately that they engaged with
this because I think they they knew that they were
in over their heads, not only because I think Oasis
was just better at insulting them, Like Oasis, you know,
Noel and Liam they are among the greatest insult comics
in rock history. So like, if you're gonna go toe
to toe with them with you know, insults, you're gonna lose.

(27:00):
Was like, there's really no one that can keep up
with them. But also you had this wave that was
starting to happen with Oasis where they were really starting
to take over the country. So you know, they had
this I think appeal as underdogs, but they were like
really becoming the dominant ones like pretty quickly, so it
just seemed like an every opportunity like Oasis would be

(27:23):
the ones kind of like seizing control of this rivalry.
And like again, like just their ability to put Blur down,
it's just consistently hilarious. Like one of my favorite putdowns
of Blur at this time that came from I think
I think it came from Nol. He referred to them
as Chimney sweet music, you know, like think you know,

(27:44):
like Dick Van Van and Mary Poppins like that kind
of thing, which is hilarious, you know, I think again
of this. Yeah, like this like very sort of like
I don't want to say affected britishness of their music
because they were actually British, but like it just seemed
adgerated to the point of at least an Oasis asize
as being like comic, it's like give it a rest,

(28:07):
Like we know you're from England, you don't have to
like lay on this accent. That just seems phony at
some level. And uh, as Oasis was rising in popularity,
it just seemed like these hits that they could take
against Blur, it just seemed to be landing more and
more and having more of a devastating effect on their popularity,
and the more of the Blur would kind of go

(28:28):
on on the news and sort of like backpedal a
little bit, you know, earn even more wrath from the Gallaghers,
because there's nothing that they hate more than somebody. You know,
if if they sense fear in you, they're gonna go
that much harder, I feel like, so that really earned
even more disrespect from Oasis. And the funny thing to
me about this whole chart battle thing is that all
this fuss is over too. Not that great songs. I

(28:50):
don't think either of these songs are, like you know,
in any way really notable aside from this feud in
either of their cannons. I mean, the Blur song country
House sounds like a parody to me of park Life,
And as you said, it's about a man in the
city who makes his millions and then retires to the
country for this rural life of anti depression meds and
weight watchers. And it was poking fun at their former manager,

(29:13):
and it boasted this really high concept video directed by
Damien Hirst, the world famous artist, and it co starred
pretty big English stars at the time. Keith Allen is
Lily Allen's dad, and Little Britain star Matt Lucas, who
are big comediy so it had these, like you know,
celebrity driven music videos, and Oasis, on the other hand,
didn't bother with things like that. Well yeah, and you

(29:35):
know the thing is, though, I I think you're right
about in terms of these two songs. I'll even say,
and this is again to prove how unbiased I'm going
to be in this episode. In spite of my pro
wassis bias, I actually think country Houses maybe a better
song than Roll with It, Like Roll with It is
like one of the weaker tracks for sure. I wants
a story Morning Glory. I mean, even Noel Gallagher himself said,

(29:58):
and this is another great quote, he said, it's about
funk all That's what he said about Roll with It,
basically just like a meaningless song that he just knocked out.
He also called country House fucking dogshit, so he thought
both songs sucked, and like, I don't think always has
ever played role with It live. It's like one of
the few songs off that record, and what story Morning
Glories just like a blockbuster album. Most of the songs

(30:20):
on that record have become live staples. But like Roll
with It, in spite of being a single, you know,
they've never really played it, and I think that pretty
much says it all about how they feel about that song.
But yeah, it's funny that this ended up being like
the flashpoint really between these two bands, and again it
is still some mind blowing I think of how big
a cultural event this was. The final results were the
lead story on the ten o'clock news in England. I

(30:42):
mean that that was what they lead with, so huge
cultural event. Oasis were the band that were favored to win.
I think it was a bookmaker gave him the odds
at six and four in their favor, but ultimately Blur
were victorious. Country House sold I think two hundred and
seventy four thousand copies to Roll with Its two hundred
and sixteen thousand, and they charted number one and number

(31:03):
two respectively. Uh. Some cynics, I have to say, pointed
out the fact that Blur released two CD singles, one
of them had live tracks from their mile end show
in June. Uh. In other words, some Oasis fans believed
that the election was stolen. Yes, but they were still
number one and William. William's response was took him five

(31:23):
years ago to number one, took us twelve months fair point.
And you know, again, when you look at the response
to this election that took place, you see where these
two groups diverge because I think, you like, when Blur
found out that they won, you know this thing, they
kind of had this attitude of like, Okay, now we

(31:44):
can maybe go back to just being normal here. Like
Alex James had this quote where he said, the thing
that most people don't understand when they read the papers
is that this revelry is all made up. I know
that when I want to hear a good song, I
can write one, and when I want to go for
a drink, I can call up Liam. There's few peple
would rather drink with than Oasis. So you know, he's
trying to put a good face on it that like, Okay,

(32:05):
this this is just for publicity, we're actually friends in
real life. And it seems like, you know, Blur has
felt this way consistently over the years, like when they've
been asked about it. There was a quote from Graham
Coxon where he looked back on this, you know role
with it versus Country House competition and he he really
felt that it was like quote a hollow, pointless victory,

(32:26):
you know, that this was just basically just like a
lot of nonsense that was that was ginned up to
sell records. And yeah they won, but he you know,
it doesn't really matter that we won this thing. But
Oasis did not feel that way. They felt much different.
And I think what's interesting about this is that like, yeah, Blur, like,
you know, they won this competition between these two singles,

(32:48):
but it was kind of the beginning of the end
of them being the big expand in England. I mean,
because I think pretty quickly this is where they're kind
of crossing like their trajectories and like Blurs going down
a little bit, and you really see Oays again shooting
up into the stratosphere. If Blur and interviews were saying like,
oh yeah, we didn't really care, we're all friends always
just a the total opposite approach. Uh. Liam gives an

(33:10):
interview the Enemy soon after the chart battle, and he says,
I cared because I want number ones. I think roll
with It is a great song, and he goes he
talks about how he met up with Alex James in
a pub soon after all this, and he said, oh, yeah,
congratulations on your number one. You know, it's about sucking time,
and Alex is trying to be all nice and friendly, says,
oh yeah, well you know both of our songs were

(33:30):
shipped anyway, and William turns on and says, no, this
is where you're wrong, and this is why I fucking
hate you and your band. I thought our song was top.
So again this really gets back to the whole like
they're not here to play, you know, like like this
faux humility, bashful thing like, no, we want to be
the best fucking band in the world, and if you're
in front of us and get out of the fucking way,

(33:51):
which you know I I appreciate on some level. No,
actually was even more blunt about his hatred of Blur.
He was giving an interview, I think to the Observer
and he said I hate that Alex and Damon. I
hope they catch aids and die for which which he
later apologized and downgraded the wish to a bad coal

(34:13):
but but still not not a not a nice thing
to say. Yeah, this is the most infamous incident I
think in this rivalry, and I have to say, you know,
I love Oasis, but this is an instance where I
feel a little embarrassed to be backing the band that
wished aids on the other band. I feel like that's
not a great look for my boys here, and I

(34:33):
wish that wouldn't have happened. Again, showing my lack of
bias in this episode, I will call out Oasis for
doing that. They shouldn't have done that. Blur, you were
in the right. I'm sorry that happened. But this all
goes back to something I brought up earlier, which is,
you know how genuine really? Like was this ravelry? And
I I'm just flashing back to that quote that we

(34:54):
were talking about, like where Alex James was saying, you know,
I can go to a bar and I can call
it William Gallagher and I know I can drink with
him and it's going to be a good time. And
then we have that quote from Liam Gallagher like where
they are actually drinking together and he's talking about how
much he hates Alex James and it's like his face
like what's right? Like are they actually pals or do
they actually hate each other? Again, I I just go

(35:15):
back to this idea that like I think Oasis felt
genuine competition with them. I think they you know, they
wanted to be the biggest ban in the world, and
they knew that in order to do that, they had
to take out Blur first. So it's like, you know,
almost like a sporting competition, like you have to hate
your opponent, and I think that is where the hate
was rooted. And maybe like if that wasn't in the

(35:36):
way or like once you know, Blur was vanquished, you know,
there wasn't going to be that motivation to hate them anymore.
So I think that's genuine. But also at the same time,
I think there was an acknowledgement on Oasis part that
this was going to be good for their career. It
was like a win win, like, we hate these guys,
It's going to motivate us to propel our career forward,
and it's also going to give us publicity, you know,

(35:57):
the pro wrestling side of Oasis, which I've always loved,
and that's another reason why I like them more than Blur.
I like their outrageousness, but it just seemed like it
had a double thing of like kind of fueling their
fire and also you know, helping them out on the
pr n you get the impression that Oasis all they
ever really knew how to do was fight, like just
in their interactions with the world. I mean, if you

(36:18):
look at their upbringing and just just sort of the
violence of the Arato lessons, it makes total sense. I mean,
fight is like sort of the first thing that comes
to their mind in any kind of human response. So yeah,
it almost seems like they would lead with that in
any in any interaction. And you noticed that once uh,
they clearly begin to eclipse Blur as Britain's biggest band
and eventually the bigger band in the world, the feud

(36:39):
between them kind of dissipates. I think that the real
sort of defining moment when they overtook Blur was at
the brit Awards, in which was I believe a year
after Blur had come out ahead and they went up
on stage and they thanked Oasis and said, you know,
they should be up here with us as best British Band,
and they shared the moment with them. Oasis kind of

(37:01):
flipped that on its head. They when they won I
think it was Best British Band. They get up on
stage and they mock Blur by singing from the Podium
a version of Blurs Park Life that was now titled
Shite Life. So very different response to UH to getting
the Glory and becoming the number one band. And I

(37:23):
feel like this was right when Blur and Oasis released
their long players in the fall of Blur came first
with The Great Escape, and What's the Story Morning Glory
came in October. The Great Escape came out, hit number one,
but it didn't hit the highs that Park Life had.
It was generally seen as kind of more of a
disappointment from the previous album one triple platinum and got

(37:45):
good reviews, but it just completely pales in comparison to
the cultural juggernaut that was What's the Story Morning Glory?
I mean, if Blur won the commercial battle with the
song chart battle, Oasis won the war. I mean they
rebounded from role with it to score of this global
success that just, you know, almost immediately afterwards, with the
release of Wonder Wall, it just crushed any subsequent single

(38:08):
releases from Blurry's The Great Escape, and it bolted them
to fame not only in England but in the United States,
which had alluded Blur up to this point. I think
that's the crucial difference here is that Oasis was able
to become genuine rock stars in America in a way
that Blur never was. And you know, we're an American
podcast that we have an American centric view of this

(38:28):
whole thing, of course, but I think for you know, historically,
for British bands to make it in America, that's a
whole other level of success, you know, going back to
the nineteen sixties, like if you could come across the
pond and have hits in America, that meant that you
were really going to be one of the greats, and
you know, Blur never was really able to do that.
You know, they had song to which is like one

(38:51):
of the like cooler Jack jams I guess of like
the last twenty five years, but like in terms of
a song like wonder Wall or even like you know,
songs like don't Look Back in Anger and Champions Supernova,
which you know aren't as big as wonder Wall, but
like we're still like substantial hits and like we're playing
on MTV all the time always. It's just achieved like
a level of cultural ubiquity in the States and then

(39:13):
of course elsewhere in the world that Blur could not
compete with which is why I think, you know you
were saying earlier, like for a lot of Americans, they
don't even think of this as a ravalry. You know.
That's the kind of the irony of it for you know,
as much as like I've talked about it in my book,
and you know, as intensive as it was in England,
really like in terms of like the greater world, you know,

(39:34):
it's not on the level certainly of like the Beatles
and Stones, like two bands that you know had equally
great careers outside of England. This was really like a
British phenomenon, you know, these two bands going at it,
and then Oasis of course they go to America and
then they end up just kind of going off on
their own and being much bigger where it becomes more
about the ravelry within the band than it does with

(39:55):
this other band. Of course, like with Oasis, you know
what's the story, Morning Glory like really ends up being
their peak in America because after that they're gonna put
up be here now and look, I love be here now.
I had a great time talking about that in our
Leam versus Noel episode. I'll direct you to that if
you want to hear more conversations about that Coked Out debacle,

(40:16):
which is again I think, kind of a brilliant debacle.
But as we look ahead, like to the two thousands
and beyonds it is interesting to compare the trajectories of
these bands, and especially like Damon Alburn as he becomes
a solo artist and really like this like musical renaissance man. Yeah,
I mean, Blur kind of collapsed after two thousand threes
think Tank uh, and they didn't make music together for

(40:37):
I think almost a decade. But Damon saves his best
ideas for his animated at the time side project Guerrillas,
which is actually one of my favorite bands. And he
scored an international smash with Delva Funky Homo Sapien on
the song Clint Eastwood And you know it's funny. I mean,
no at the time when Oasis, his fortunes as a
band are really on the downturn, he couldn't resist twist

(40:59):
the knife a little bit. Noel said that, you know,
it's fitting that Damon has ended up in a cartoon band,
but you know, I think that it's really it's incredible
how he's able to reinvent himself creatively. I mean you
could be cynical and say he does this by having
the sort of revolving door of all these different artists
that he brings in from you know, Snoop Dogg to
think Elton John most recently. It kind of is sort

(41:21):
of almost like you could view Ms almost a musical vampire,
just taking from other people. But I think it's an
incredibly creative and innovative approach to to make in music
and deep in Days in two thousand and five, another
international hit Plastic Beach in ten. Really, I think he's
had a creative high and he definitely hit a bigger

(41:41):
commercial peak in the States than he ever did with Blur.
And this is at a time and again Oasis is
really on the downturn. Yeah, I mean I think you know,
you look at Oasis in comparison to alburn in the
auds and beyond, and you know, it's very easy to
look at alburna is again like this musical renaissance man,
that he's someone who I think really proved that like
he wasn't just a one trick pony with Blur, that

(42:03):
he could move beyond brit pop and really kind of
going to all these different musical arenas that I think
felt much more contemporary with the time, like he felt
like he was evolving with like the music scenes of
you know, the century in a way that Oasis really wasn't.
Like Oasis by the odds became essentially like a legacy act.

(42:24):
Although I will say again as an Oasis fanboy, two
thousand Fives Don't Believe the Truth one of their great records,
and I'll say that, like, I think that album really
is like an instance of them being a band in
a way that they weren't in the nineties, because you
had at that time people like Andy Bell and gam
Archer in the band who were writing songs. Liam actually

(42:45):
was writing songs at this time. Actually, on the previous
Oasis record, Heathen Chemistry, he wrote like a really nice
ballad called Songbird, which ended up being one of the
breakout tracks from that record. And it seemed like Oasis
might be the kind of band that, like, for all
of their struggles and in her personal conflicts, that you know,
maybe they could be like the Rolling Stones and just

(43:07):
continue on for decades and decades. But of course that
was not to be the case. They ended up inmploating
in two thousand nine after a fight between Liam and
Nol backstage in Paris. As we discussed in a Liam
in No episode that was thrown fruit involved. It was
very crazy. Again, please listen to that episode to get
into the nitty gritty of that. What is kind of

(43:28):
amazing to me and maybe like a little bit sad,
is that, like, you know, a ways this is done,
Blur actually ends up coming back and having a resurgence
in the two thousand tens, and of course Damon Alburn
is doing all this stuff with Gorillas as well as
like various other side projects that he was involved in.
You also see like Damon Alburn and Noel Gallagher actually
start to be friends publicly, you know, which is like,

(43:51):
oh this, this is a sign of maturity for these guys,
but also for a fan like me, I didn't know
how to take that, and I guess I still don't. Yeah,
No one gives an interner you inn when he's talking
about we just bumped into Damon at a bar and
he said, oh, yeah, I haven't seen this guy in
like fifteen years. Hey, how you been. Remember all that
ship in the nineties and we were like fighting and

(44:13):
slacking each other off on the predect that was really weird.
Do you want to want to have a bar? I
want to have a beer, And just like that, you know,
I mean, beer is a hell of a diplomat, I
should say. But uh, it kind of made it apparent
that like time had healed any of these bruised egos.
And Noel said, you know you can I'll paraphrase slightly
what he said, but he said, you know, you can
say you respect someone as an artist a thousand times

(44:35):
and will never get reported, but you call someone a
dick my words once, you know, So it kind of
didn't seem like ins that it was all water under
the bridge. And um. Noel actually shared the stage with
Damon and Graham Coxon in at a at the Royal
Albert Hall for a Cancer Trust benefit show and they
played Blurs Tender together and then he went even on

(44:57):
record for the song we Got the Power of two
thousands seventeen, Guerrilla's song, and uh, Dannon said in an
interview later that year, he said, you know, we don't
talk about our past. We talked about our present. I
value my friendship with Noel because he's one of the
only people who went through what I did in the nineties.
And again I can look at this and you know,
as an adult, I can say, well, this is great.

(45:18):
These are people that have like reached middle age and
they have achieved a certain I guess zen serenity, and
they can put aside any kind of conflicts in the past.
Damon can get over feeling bullied and you know, whatever
fall out he felt over Noel wishing that he had
AIDS and Noel can, uh, you know, put aside the
competition that he had as a younger man and just

(45:39):
respect Damon Alburn as an artist. I should think that
this is beautiful, and on some level I do, but
there's also the part of me that hosts a Rivals
podcast and I like the pettiness and I have to
say that I appreciate that Liam Gallagher continues to waive
the petty flag in the Oasis versus Blur Rivelry, and
he was talking about this in and of course he

(46:00):
was on Twitter and he says now that dick out
of Blur and the creepy one out of Oasis need
to hang their heads in shame, as it's no dancing
in the streets. As you were talking about that Gorilla song,
I guess, and of course also making a reference to
the Mick Jagger David Bowie duet dancing in the streets,
which I thought was a pretty funny joke. And then

(46:20):
he had another tweet where he said that gob shite
out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a
massive girl, but believe you me, next time I see him,
there's gonna be war. And you know, and Liam went
on to say that he felt that like this uh
datant basically between Damon and Noel killed brit pop and
like just took all of the fun and drama and

(46:42):
conflict that we all loved back in the nineties and
you know, put it away. And you know, as we
covered in our Liam versus Nol episode, I think Liam,
he continues to I guess, keep that pro wrestling aspect
of Oasis alive. I think Noel has reached a point
in his career in life where maybe he's a little
embarrassed by that he doesn't want to do it anymore.
But thank God for Liam Gallagher. He keeps the pro

(47:05):
wrestling part of Oasis going, and he feeds the petty
souls of Oasis fans like me who don't really think
that Blur suck, but like we love to say that
they suck because it's a lot of fun. We're gonna
take a quick break to get a word from our
sponsor before we get to more rivals. All right, so

(47:31):
we've reached the part of our episode where we give
the pro side of each part of the rivalry, and
let's let's talk about Oasis first. As I've said, I
love Oasis absolutely one of my favorite bands of the nineties,
and there's no question that in relation to Blur, Oasis
has had a much bigger impact on the world. I mean,
their most popular song, wonder Wall, is among the only
songs to have been streamed more than one billion times

(47:54):
on Spotify. You know, there's just something timelessly rock and
roll about their music, whereas Blurred, to me, is much
more of a nineties band. You know, they're specific to
their era. Plus there's all the stuff around Oasis that
is just so outrageous and fun. I never get sick
of reading about it or hearing about it. Oasis forever.
You're right, how can you not love these guys? I mean,

(48:17):
their personalities are are just as big as their commercial success.
It's just they're They're incredible. They're the best insult comics ever.
Maybe Blur were smarter, and maybe they were better received
by the critics, but Oasis are just so much more fun.
And you know, when you want to rock out, what
do you reach for, like you know, End of a Century,
Like no you put on fucking like you know, rock

(48:38):
and roll Star, or like even like roll with It.
You know, I think people connect to Oasis in a
way that emotionally that they never could with Blur. I
think that, you know, Oasis, like I'm saying earlier, they
every man. They made you believe that we could all
be rock and roll stars if we all just had
enough swagger and self belief. And I think they make
people feel better. I feel like, So if you go

(48:59):
over to the probe Blur side, look, I've bent over
backwards to be magnanimous in this episode, and you know,
to set aside all my prejudices, you know, in favor
of Oasis. So in the spirit of that, I will
say that, you know, Blur, they were not the instigators
really of this ravelry. They were I think, in many respects,
the victims of it. You know, they were targeted because

(49:19):
they had the misfortunate being the more popular band when
Oasis came out, and that made them a target. It
made them this topic of scorn that Oasis was going
to shoot on basically until Blur got out of the way,
and that happened to work. But you know, again, I
can say as an Oasis fan that they definitely bullied

(49:40):
Blur and that maybe wasn't a cool thing to do.
I also think that, you know, you could make a
case that Blur was maybe more consistent over their career
and they were undoubtedly more musically diverse. Also, I think
Damon Alburn, you know, his career outside of Blur has
been very distinguished and he's done things as an artist,
whether it's with Gorilla Is or one of his many

(50:02):
other bands that you know, it's overshadowed really anything that
like Liam or Noel have done on their own. So
he deserves credit for that. That said, Blur will never
matter as much as Oasis, and I'm sorry I have
to say that in the pro Blur part of this episode,
but I said a lot of nice things about Blur
without you, so I feel like I needed to put

(50:23):
something at the end and say it once more. Oasis Forever. Yeah,
I have to agree it. Just as an American, I
always felt like Blur's music wasn't for me, you know.
I mean, I appreciate their eclectic, arty nature and when
they're at their most kinksie, but yeah, it just was
something that it never really resonated with me in an
emotional way. But I appreciate that just how eclectic Damon's

(50:45):
career was later on. Just from an artistic standpoint, I
think his music keeps me interested longer than Oasis is sound,
which is generally static. Like if I hear a new
Gorillas albums coming out, I'm really excited to hear it,
But if there's a new Liam or Old solo project,
I kind of feel like I know what I mean
for and the excitement is not totally the same. But again,
I'm gonna have to echo what you said Oasis forever.

(51:07):
I agree. So if you look at these two bands together,
I mean, look, I think it was a really funny
and like fun rivalry that made me care about rivalries
as a teenager, and it was more fun to love
Oasis if I could also hate Blur at the same time,
Like it just enhanced my appreciation of something that already
gave me a lot of joy. So you know, again,

(51:27):
I am Oasis all the way, but I appreciate Blur
for being a supporting player, really like in this conflict
and being you know, a great topic for some just
hilarious Oasis insults. Yeah, somebody who lived the majority of
their life listening to both bands independently without realizing that
they were direct competition with one another. I could say

(51:48):
it's pretty easy to enjoy them both separately. I mean,
the things that I like and admire about each band
sort of stands in contrast on one another. I like
Oasis is swagger and their pro wrestling level insults, and
I like there's weird, quirky art school sensibilities. You know,
you can like them both. So I think at this
point the only thing that's left to be said is
don't look back in anger the most perfect one, or

(52:11):
maybe roll with it. I guess we could say we're
rolling with it here at the end of our episode,
thank you again for rolling with us. I guess in
this episode of Rivals, we've had a great time talking
about this beef and feud and long swimming resentment. We'll
be back with more in our next episode. Next week

(52:32):
Rivals is a production of My Heart Radio. The executive
producers are Shawn ty Toone and Noel Brown. Supervising producers
are Taylor Chicoyn and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel hat Stat,
I'm Jordan's Run Tug, I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like
what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.
For more podcast for My heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen
to your favorite shows.